"Just down from the North,—joining the Great Harry to-morrow. Where's every one? Is there an air-raid on, and were the cellars too full for you, my hack-saw expert?"
"They were not. They're damn near empty, worse luck. But the Depôt Boxing is on to-night, and I'd be there too, only it's my turn for guard. It's no good your going now, you old pug; they'll finish in half an hour, and it's a mile away."
"Oh! Well, I'm tired, anyway. I want dinner and then a bed. Of all filthy games, give me a war-time train journey. I've found a cabin here, and I found a bath, and I won't quarrel with any one for an hour or two."
"Then, you may as well keep the cabin while you've got it, because the Great Harry is having her mountings altered, and won't commission for a week yet."
James Rainer swivelled round in his chair to take the sherry glass from the waiter. "Here's luck, Doc. I thought she commissioned to-morrow, though."
"Gun trials to-day, and the experts didn't like her. Not much wrong, I believe, but she's delayed a week. Here's long life and a——" The surgeon paused and put his glass down. James Rainer stared at him somewhat truculently.
"James, my boy, I was forgetting. Your little flapper's here. Ah! I see you know all about that."
"Doc.—you're an ass; I wasn't thinking of that at all."
The surgeon leaned back in his arm-chair and prepared to enjoy himself.
"Ah! James, me old friend—pot companion of me youth! What a chicken-butcher you are! If only you hadn't been so young; two years ago, was it not? How the years do roll on, to be sure. And what a little romance it was—the blue-eyed flag-lieutenant and the admiral's daughter—always the first two down to breakfast. And we used to hear, too, in the Yard, of the little expeditions when you were detailed to take her back to school and—No! hands off! Would you touch me with a cheild in me arrms? Let me go and I'll tell you all about her—and look out for my drink, you great ruffian."